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Emotion regulation group therapy (ERGT) is a novel treatment specifically targeting deliberate non-suicidal self-harm (DSH) in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Identifying robust predictors of positive response to ERGT could aid clinicians in treatment selection; however, to date, only one such study has been conducted. Thus, we aimed to replicate previously identified predictors of treatment response to ERGT by investigating demographic, clinical, and diagnostic predictors in 95 women with BPD or subclinical BPD who had participated in an open-trial evaluation of ERGT. Outcomes evaluated were frequency of DSH and emotion dysregulation. Assessments were conducted at pretreatment, post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up. Multilevel mixed linear models and multilevel negative binomial generalized estimated equations were used to identify significant interactions between the predictors and outcomes. We found that greater pretreatment DSH frequency was associated with greater improvements in DSH during treatment (b = 0.998, SE = 0.00, p = 0.03) and follow-up (b = 0.997, SE = 0.00, p < 0.01) and that greater BPD severity was associated with greater improvements in DSH during treatment (b = 0.84, SE = 0.06, p = 0.02) and in emotion dysregulation at follow-up (b = −3.05, SE = 1.47, p = 0.04). Co-occurring disorders were associated with poorer treatment response during follow-up. Results were generally consistent with a previous study of the predictors of response to ERGT. The findings provide further support for the utility of this treatment across a range of BPD patients, including patients with severe DSH and BPD.

Self-injury in adolescents (e.g. when individuals cut, burn, hit or otherwise deliberately cause themselves direct injury), has gained recognition as a potentially important mental health problem during the past decade. Relatively little has been known about the scope and characteristics of this behavior in Swedish adolescents. This thesis consists of three studies that in different ways explore the characteristics of self-injury among adolescents in the general community. In Study 1 a convenience sample of 202 adolescents responded to a battery of self-report questionnaires on self-injury and a number of related factors at two different occasions. At these times 36.5 % and 40.2 % respectively reported to have deliberately engaged in self-injurious behaviors. Self-injury also showed robust relationships with general psychopathology, an absence of positive feelings to parents, and a ruminative style of emotion regulation. These latter two factors were also predictors of self-injury, independently of general psychopathology. Additionally, in girls, results also indicated a relationship between self-injury and symptoms of eating disorder and negative body esteem. Study 2 used a longitudinal survey design with a 1-year interval to further investigate self-injury in a community sample of 1052 adolescents. The battery of self-report questionnaires on self-injury and related factors was again employed, and both conventional statistical methods and hierarchical cluster analysis were used to analyze the results. Results indicated that 41.5 % and 42.9 % respectively had engaged in self-injury, as reported at the two occasions of data collection. The cluster analyses identified eight different subgroups of self-injuring adolescents (in each gender) based on patterns of self-injury. In both boys and girls a fairly large proportion (about 60 %) of self-injuring adolescents were found in a subgroup reporting low-frequency self-injury only, and little psychological difficulties. T

The aim of this study was to examine the association between autobiographical memory specificity and future thinking in a depressed sample. A total of 88 individuals who meet the DSM-IV criteria of major depression were included and completed the autobiographical memory test (AMT) and the future thinking task (FTT). The FTT was an index of number of future plausible events, rating of likelihood and emotional valence. The results showed that positive future thinking was significantly correlated with retrieval of specific positive autobio-graphical memories (r = 0.23). Moreover, correlational analyses showed that positive autobiographical memo-ries were negatively correlated with extended autobiographical memories, repeated autobiographical memories, semantic associations and non-responses on the AMT. Self-report measures of depression and anxiety were not correlated with either the FTT or the AMT. The results of this cross-sectional study only give weak support for an association between autobiographical memory specificity and future thinking.

Depressed patients have been found to generate fewer anticipated positive future events, but most previous studies have included patients who have either been severely depressed or expressed suicidal thoughts and intents or both. The aim of this study was to compare positive and negative future-directed thinking in persons with mild to moderate depression who did not express suicidal thoughts or intents (n = 20) with a matched group of nondepressed persons (n = 20). The two groups completed the Future-Thinking Task (FTT), in which they were asked to generate positive and negative anticipated future events for three upcoming time periods (1 week, 1 year, and 5-10 years). In the present version of the FTT, both quantitative and qualitative aspects were included (i.e. subjective likelihood and emotional valence). Results showed that depressed persons reported lower scores regarding anticipated future positive events but they did not differ in terms of future negative events. The results are consistent with previous research and further strengthen the notion that reduced anticipation of future positive events is a defining characteristic of depression, even in the absence of suicidal ideation.